Fe hovered silently above the fractured surface of the Moon, staring at the Titan for a long while as crimson dust drifted endlessly around them. Cracks stretched across the lunar landscape for hundreds of kilometers now, entire mountain ranges reduced to debris from the sheer force of their battle. Above them, Earth shimmered peacefully in the distance, completely unaware of the war being fought to protect it.
For a moment, neither moved.
Then Fe sighed deeply.
"How long," he asked calmly, "are you planning to keep throwing the same attack at me?"
The Titan answered only with a furious roar.
Its enormous stone body split apart along glowing seams as blinding white light ignited within its chest once more. Energy compressed violently between the layers of rock, growing brighter and denser until space itself began warping around the attack.
Then it fired.
A colossal beam erupted toward Fe like a collapsing star.
The lunar surface beneath it vaporized instantly as the blast tore forward with catastrophic force capable of erasing cities from existence.
Fe merely narrowed his glowing violet eyes.
he raised one hand, and with that single motion the beam stopped.
The enormous torrent of energy froze directly before his palm, held perfectly in place by a gravitational field so dense that even light struggled to move properly within it. The surrounding space distorted violently as Fe's power compressed the attack into itself.
Then casually,
he waved his hand aside.
The beam bent away harmlessly into deep space.
The Titan stared at him strangely.
It was beginning to understand.
Its attacks could not break through Fe's defenses.
Cataclysms were not like ordinary Spawn. They were not mindless beasts driven solely by hunger and destruction. A Cataclysm could learn. Adapt. Analyze. When brute force failed, it searched for alternatives.
Unfortunately, in this case, adaptation only made the Titan angrier.
Its roar deepened.
Then suddenly,
the Titan vanished.
Fe's eyes grew wide.
It moved so fast that even his enhanced vision failed to track it properly. One instant it stood before him,
the next it was simply gone.
Instinctively, Fe closed his eyes and trusted in his defenses. Nothing should have been capable of reaching him through the expanding gravity field surrounding his body.
Then something slammed into him.
The impact was enormous.
Stone crashed against his side with enough force to send him hurtling through space like a meteor. His body spun violently as blood erupted from his mouth, crimson droplets scattering weightlessly into the void.
"What-!?"
Pain exploded through his ribs.
Fe stabilized himself quickly, stopping his momentum through a violent gravitational burst, but his nose was already bleeding heavily and several internal organs had ruptured from the strike. Thankfully, his regeneration had already begun repairing the damage.
Still,
that hit should have been impossible.
His eyes darted around the battlefield.
Then he was struck again.
This time from the side.
The impact bent his body unnaturally before launching him across space once more. He stabilized again immediately,
only to be struck from above.
Blood splattered through the vacuum as his black hair became stained crimson.
Fe gritted his teeth violently while forcing himself to think.
'How?'
How was the Titan bypassing his gravity field?
Then realization struck him.
His expression turned furious.
"With the blindfold removed…"
He finally understood.
The gravitational field surrounding his body expanded constantly, growing denser and stronger with every passing second. Anything entering it should have been crushed instantly.
But the Titan had adapted.
It was moving so fast that it crossed the affected area before the intensified gravity could properly influence it. Rather than overpowering Fe's defenses, it was bypassing them through sheer speed.
Fe cursed himself inwardly.
"How could I have missed something so obvious?!"
The Titan appeared behind him again.
This time Fe reacted instantly.
A massive beam of stellar light erupted sideways through space as Fe redirected another distant supernova directly toward the creature.
The explosion consumed the space around them with its light.
The Titan vanished within the light,
but only its afterimage had truly been hit.
It had escaped before impact.
Fe spit blood into empty space while glaring at the creature with narrowed eyes.
His strategy had failed.
If he continued fighting defensively, the Titan would eventually wear him down before his gravitational field became strong enough to kill it completely.
But then,
a wicked grin slowly spread across his face.
"Well then…"
He cracked his neck once.
"If that's how you want to play this…"
Fe raised both fists.
His senses sharpened to their absolute limit as gravitational perception spread around him like an invisible ocean.
"Forget the size difference."
He grinned wildly now.
"Let's box."
The Titan roared, its image invisible to the eye.
Then it appeared behind him instantly.
This time Fe moved immediately.
He twisted sideways, barely avoiding the massive stone fist flying toward his skull. The attack missed him by centimeters, the force alone enough to distort space around them.
Then Fe punched back.
Gravity compressed around his fist into an impossibly dense singularity before impact.
BOOM.
The Titan's enormous arm exploded sideways.
Cracks spread across its thick armor instantly as the creature recoiled violently from the blow, entire sections of stone shattering away into the void.
Fe grinned like a madman.
"Yeah," he muttered. "That works."
The Titan vanished again.
Fe closed his eyes briefly and focused entirely on the distortions surrounding him. Every movement now created ripples he could sense.
'One more minute.'
That was all he needed.
Another minute and the gravitational density around his body would become lethal even to the Titan with its immense speed.
The creature appeared behind him again.
Fe prepared himself to counter,
but stopped.
The Titan was not attacking.
It simply stood there.
Its hollow eyes had changed.
Pupils formed slowly within them.
The Titan stared at Fe silently for a long while before slowly lowering its gaze toward its own stone body.
Its eyes widened in horror.
"My…"
Its voice emerged fragmented and distorted, like shattered rocks grinding together.
"My… body…"
Fe froze.
That was not possible.
Spawn did not speak.
Cataclysms possessed intelligence, yes, but this… this was different. This was awareness.
The Titan trembled violently.
Then suddenly it grabbed its own head.
"The angel…" it muttered shakily.
Its voice became louder.
"The angel did this!"
The roar that followed shook the Moon itself.
Pain erupted through the Titan's body as corruption consumed it again, driving it back toward madness. Yet even while losing itself, the creature looked toward Fe desperately.
"Mister…"
Its voice broke apart.
"Please…"
Fe's eyes grew wide staring at the Titan.
"Do not…"
The Titan convulsed violently, resisting its own madness.
"Trust…"
Its body cracked apart further as madness overtook it once more.
"The angels…"
Then it roared, consumed by madness once more.
The brief moment of clarity vanished beneath overwhelming corruption.
Fe remained frozen for only a second.
Then sorrow filled his eyes.
"So you truly were suffering…"
The Titan charged again, but this time Fe simply raised his hand.
By now, the gravitational field surrounding him had reached catastrophic levels.
The Titan stopped instantly.
Locked in place.
Unable to move even a single step.
Fe looked at the creature silently.
No triumph remained in his expression now, only pity.
"I'm sorry," he said softly.
His voice carried genuine grief within it.
"Dear child…"
The Titan struggled desperately while roaring in agony.
Fe's eyes lowered.
"Please rest now."
Then,
four beams of stellar light descended simultaneously.
Four supernovas.
Fe bent their trajectories across space itself and brought them crashing directly onto the Titan's body.
The Moon disappeared beneath blinding white light.
The Titan did not even have time to scream.
Its stone body disintegrated completely beneath the impossible force, every fragment erased from existence until nothing remained at all.
Silence returned.
Fe floated there quietly for several long moments.
He had won.
Yet there was no satisfaction within him.
Only sorrow.
The Titan had not been a monster.
It had been a victim.
Quickly, Fe pulled his blindfold back over his glowing eyes. The crushing gravitational field surrounding him weakened instantly, allowing the Moon's surface to finally stop collapsing further.
Then he rushed toward the remains.
Among the fading debris, he found her.
The girl, she remained unconscious through the battle.
Perfectly preserved within what remained of the Titan's core.
Fe immediately removed the breathing device attached to his own body and secured it onto hers just in time. A thin invisible barrier formed around her instantly, stabilizing her condition.
Meanwhile, sunlight touched Fe's exposed skin directly.
Cracks immediately spread across his arms from the overwhelming radiation and pressure. Without the device protecting him, the vacuum and solar exposure began tearing his body apart slowly.
But he ignored it.
Because despite everything,
he had saved them.
Both the girl…
and the boy trapped within the Titan.
Fe held the unconscious girl carefully in his arms before slowly beginning his descent back toward Earth.
Yet even as he traveled through the endless darkness of space, one sentence echoed endlessly inside his mind.
Again, again and again.
"Do not trust the angels…"
Fe tightened his grip slightly around the girl.
His expression darkened beneath the blindfold.
"…What the hell does that mean?"